The burning aroma detected Friday evening on the track, jumping pits and throwing areas at J. Birney Crum Stadium were the remains of the Lehigh Valley Conference, which was bulldozed by (take your pick) the programs of North Penn, athletes from the powerful and underrated Mountain Valley Conference and the Colonial League, which got in its share of body shots.

A glance at the final team standings shows Parkland second in the boys competition but the Trojans were a distant runner-up behind MVC juggernaut Stroudsburg. In the girls division, North Penn and Stroudsburg went 1-2 with Emmaus, which finished third, the only LVC team in the top four.

Most telling was in the boys sprints where the LVC, incredibly, did not have an athlete finish in the top 10 in the 100 meters and only one athlete -- Nazareth's Tanner Lipsky -- who finished in the top five in the 200.

The stunning lack of firepower Friday does not bode well for the LVC come District 11 time in less than three weeks when its athletes will be going up against the same MVC teams as well as some of the bigger schools in the Schuylkill and Colonial leagues.

"I don't know what it is," said Liberty coach Kevin Bush, witnessing the LVC carnage around him on the J. Birney Crum infield Friday evening. "There's a lot of football players not out who could help us but I guess we all sound like a broken record on that."

Maybe it will take the ASD meet and the looming district championships to get LVC coaches and athletic directors to take a cold, hard look at how they're doing things in spring track.

One thing that was noticeable on Friday; many LVC sprinters were getting fully-automatically timed for the first time in their careers. Hand-held timing and fully-automatic timing (FAT) are totally different animals as many sprinters discovered. Hand-held 10.7s and 10.8s do not hold up well under the harsh illumination of automatic timing, which will be in effect at the LVC and Colonial League championships, which will be held concurrently May 7-8 at Whitehall.

Unbeaten Bangor (9-0) can wrap up its first outright Colonial League dual meet title in school history Tuesday if the Slaters can sweep Catasauqua and Salisbury at Bangor Park.

The Slaters won the league championship meet last year and shared the dual meet title in both 1976 and '77. They also won the league championship meet in the old Lehigh-Northampton League in 1968.

Northwestern, also 9-0, has all but wrapped up the Colonial League girls title. All the Tigers have to do is beat Notre Dame and Palisades Tuesday at Nockamixon Township and the championship is theirs.

In the LVC, Parkland has to beat Whitehall on Monday to win the boys title outright while the Trojan girls will likely end up sharing the dual meet crown with Emmaus. The two programs didn't meet this spring.

Open week in Skyland

The Skyland Conference traditionally leaves the last week in April open so its teams can focus on the Penn Relays, something the Lehigh Valley Conference and Colonial League should consider doing. The only individual athletes from Hunterdon and Warren counties to qualify for the elite fields at Penn were North Hunterdon intermediate hurdler Morgan Harvey and pole vaulter Erik Adamcik but its schools took a host of 400 and 1,600 relay teams to Franklin Field.

North Hunterdon, Hunterdon Central and Voorhees all bring relay teams down to Penn as a habit.

It's a great experience for any high school or college athlete to compete at the Penn Relays, which draws a great crowd even for the non-Olympic development competition. Even years after their appearance at Penn, many athletes count their Penn Relays experience as one of the highlights of their track and field careers.

Notes

Liberty junior K.J. Williams, one of the top long jumpers and sprinters in the LVC, has been declared academically ineligible, but could return for the postseason meets. He missed Liberty's last dual meet against Emmaus, the ASD Invitational and will be held out of Monday's dual against Freedom. Williams, the 2012 Express-Times Football Player of the Year, is a major college recruit as a wide receiver.

Nazareth's Jane Lukas was held out of the ASD Invitational because of what coach Tim Cunningham characterized as a minor knee injury. Cunningham said the plan is to have Lukas ready for the LVC Championships. Lukas has the top high jump performance in the region this spring at 5-5 and was the top-ranked athlete in all three jumping events in 2012.

Bethlehem Catholic did not enter the ASD Invitational but coach Gary Mohylsky did bring a girls 1,600 relay team to the Penn Relays on Thursday. The team of Jade Kubitsky, Lexi Reightler, Katie Altpeter and Mara Blanchard won its section in 4:04.36, the best time in the region this year.

Mohylsky will have a big decision to make with Blanchard at the end of the season. The senior shares the top ranking in the 100 meters (12.3) and is also tied for the No. 2 spot in the pole vault at 10-6. Remember, too, that Becahi has moved up to Class AAA this year after traditionally being in AA since it started its track program in the mid-1990s.